Angelia Sparrow's Blog, page 6
September 26, 2015
My Sexy Saturday: Sexy Today
So today, there really is no theme except sexy today. Authors are free to post whatever they want within the normal rules. Just make it sexy, sexy and more sexy.
Just because I'm feeling totally naughty today:
Buy Link
Blurb:Captain Salzoran and his merry crew haunt the spacelanes, taking what prizes they can. Years earlier, a chance encounter with a star yacht owned by one of the three Great Houses in the galaxy left Salzoran with a pretty green-eyed virgin boy in his cabin. He returned the young prince to his family, neither harmed, nor a virgin.
Now, although they have been apart for several years, Sharnil still remembers his pirate lover and misses him. Dissatisfied with his marriage and his life, he summons Salzoran to come and get him.
The designated meeting point is a pleasure station, built by Sharnil's father, and now hosting a month-long interstellar masquerade party and orgy. Here, on a metal wheel four miles in circumference, Salzoran must find his beloved prince amid thousands of costumed male revelers. And nothing is ever as easy as it sounds...
Your Seven Sexy Paragraphs:
“Hello, handsome.” The blond young man was painted as a Finarian temple prostitute with a nearly inadequate gold leather pouch barely covering proprieties held by a gold leather harness, low blue boots, and the elaborate gold and blue swirls painted on his face. A little blue thermosilk cape fluttered behind him as he stood.
“Boy, I’m Cythorian. And they’re putting Tucepri in the air.”
He practically purred as he slunk across the room. “Oh really?”
“It’s not safe.” I was almost growling now. I pounded one fist against the hatch. It didn’t open. I breathed. Sharnil, I reminded myself. My boy was somewhere in this big floating can and I had to find him. But, oh, the pretty blond was getting to me.
“I like living dangerously,” he whispered and tugged the tail of my hair.
“You really shouldn’t do things like that,” I ground out, slamming my fist into the bulkhead with each word.
“Plunder me, pirate,” he whispered and licked along my ear. “Make your sacrifice to Finar and the door will open.”
The Other Sexy People:
Just because I'm feeling totally naughty today:
Buy LinkBlurb:Captain Salzoran and his merry crew haunt the spacelanes, taking what prizes they can. Years earlier, a chance encounter with a star yacht owned by one of the three Great Houses in the galaxy left Salzoran with a pretty green-eyed virgin boy in his cabin. He returned the young prince to his family, neither harmed, nor a virgin.
Now, although they have been apart for several years, Sharnil still remembers his pirate lover and misses him. Dissatisfied with his marriage and his life, he summons Salzoran to come and get him.
The designated meeting point is a pleasure station, built by Sharnil's father, and now hosting a month-long interstellar masquerade party and orgy. Here, on a metal wheel four miles in circumference, Salzoran must find his beloved prince amid thousands of costumed male revelers. And nothing is ever as easy as it sounds...
Your Seven Sexy Paragraphs:
“Hello, handsome.” The blond young man was painted as a Finarian temple prostitute with a nearly inadequate gold leather pouch barely covering proprieties held by a gold leather harness, low blue boots, and the elaborate gold and blue swirls painted on his face. A little blue thermosilk cape fluttered behind him as he stood.
“Boy, I’m Cythorian. And they’re putting Tucepri in the air.”
He practically purred as he slunk across the room. “Oh really?”
“It’s not safe.” I was almost growling now. I pounded one fist against the hatch. It didn’t open. I breathed. Sharnil, I reminded myself. My boy was somewhere in this big floating can and I had to find him. But, oh, the pretty blond was getting to me.
“I like living dangerously,” he whispered and tugged the tail of my hair.
“You really shouldn’t do things like that,” I ground out, slamming my fist into the bulkhead with each word.
“Plunder me, pirate,” he whispered and licked along my ear. “Make your sacrifice to Finar and the door will open.”
The Other Sexy People:
September 23, 2015
A Quiz for those who think women destroy science fiction
There is a hue and cry still being heard in certain circles of fandom, that women and minorities have no business writing science fiction. It's a man's genre, all about laser guns and new planets and green alien women in aluminum bikinis. All this liberalism and awareness of other people is ruining the genre.
So in the spirit of the Defender of Fandom Interrogating the Fake Geek Girl, have a small quiz.
1)
This was one of the first modern action adventure novels, The Count of Monte Cristo. Which Social Justice Warrior type wrote this?
2)
Does this scene look familiar to you? If not, it should. This is the birth of science fiction as a literary genre in 1816. One of these people will write the first SF novel. Is it one of the two embracing men, is it the jealous gay lover in the background? or the brooding wife?
3)
This scene is from the story that created the masked superhero genre. It wasn't Superman, or Detective Comics. Who wrote this swashbuckler with its masked and caped hero?
Here we go
1)
Written by Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers and Man in the Iron mask have been staples of adventure readers' bookshelves for almost 300 years.
Dumas was born in Haiti, to a black slave woman. His father's noble rank opened doors normally closed to a half-black man.
2) If that still from the movie Gothic is a little homoerotic for your tastes, too bad. Lord Byron was omnivorously sexual, and both poet Percy Shelly (front and center) and Dr. John Polidori (who would later write the novella "The Vampyre" with a thinly disguised Lord Byron in the title role) were documented as filling his bed.
But perhaps you'd be more comfortable with this versions from the 1930s.
So who started Science fiction?
Nineteen year old Mary Shelley created science fiction. This is the first novel in which science is the driving force of the plot and horror. On the other hand, we can blame Polidori for the vampire novel, including sparkling vampires.
Call her a fake geek girl.
Which brings us to superheroes.
3)
Note the name. Baronness. Emmuska.Orczy.
Only daughter of a Hungarian count, she wrote 52 novels, 9 short story collections and 5 plays. The Scarlet Pimpernel was created in 1905, and his heroics captured readers, theater goers and movie goers alike for decades. She also created some of the first female detective stories and wrote detectives who used logic to solve crimes.
I hear sputtering from the back. "But but Space Opera! Star Wars, Star Trek! Those are manly things, written by men for men!"
Let me introduce you to a few names you should know. Leigh Brackett was synonymous with space opera in the heyday of the pulps. if you've been to a convention, you've seen this t-shirt:
The ebook is available at Project Gutenberg
And lest you think Star Wars is safe, I must remind you, Leigh Brackett was the screenwriter for The Empire Strikes Back. Filming stopped for a day for her funeral.
But what about Star Trek? Square-jawed WASP captain sets out to bring the American Way to space!
Once I finish laughing, and remind you that while Kirk is indeed from Iowa, his actor is Canadian, I will then ask, "what show were you watching?"
It's not America anymore. it's the United Federation of Planets.
On the typical bridge, we have a white captain, an alien science officer, a Russian navigator, an Japanese helmsman, a Kenyan communications officer and Scottish engineer.
Not ONE of these people is WASP. Scotty's Celt and so is McCoy, for all his Georgia roots. Even with a name like Kirk, the captain has Scots in him somewhere. (if he was Anglo-Saxon it would be Church) And very few of them subscribe to any religion.
More names you should know:DC Fontana wrote seven of the original episodes. Margaret Armen wrote 3Jean Lisette Aroste, Shari Lewis (yes, she of Lambchop), Joyce Muskrat, Judy Burns all gave us episodes.
The Enterprise Incident. All Our Yesterdays. The Empath. The Cloud Minders. The Ultimate Computer. By Any other Name. Tomorrow is Yesterday.All written by women.
So in the spirit of the Defender of Fandom Interrogating the Fake Geek Girl, have a small quiz.
1)
This was one of the first modern action adventure novels, The Count of Monte Cristo. Which Social Justice Warrior type wrote this?
2)
Does this scene look familiar to you? If not, it should. This is the birth of science fiction as a literary genre in 1816. One of these people will write the first SF novel. Is it one of the two embracing men, is it the jealous gay lover in the background? or the brooding wife?
3)
This scene is from the story that created the masked superhero genre. It wasn't Superman, or Detective Comics. Who wrote this swashbuckler with its masked and caped hero?
Here we go
1)
Written by Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers and Man in the Iron mask have been staples of adventure readers' bookshelves for almost 300 years.
Dumas was born in Haiti, to a black slave woman. His father's noble rank opened doors normally closed to a half-black man.
2) If that still from the movie Gothic is a little homoerotic for your tastes, too bad. Lord Byron was omnivorously sexual, and both poet Percy Shelly (front and center) and Dr. John Polidori (who would later write the novella "The Vampyre" with a thinly disguised Lord Byron in the title role) were documented as filling his bed.
But perhaps you'd be more comfortable with this versions from the 1930s.
So who started Science fiction?
Nineteen year old Mary Shelley created science fiction. This is the first novel in which science is the driving force of the plot and horror. On the other hand, we can blame Polidori for the vampire novel, including sparkling vampires.
Call her a fake geek girl.
Which brings us to superheroes.
3)
Note the name. Baronness. Emmuska.Orczy.
Only daughter of a Hungarian count, she wrote 52 novels, 9 short story collections and 5 plays. The Scarlet Pimpernel was created in 1905, and his heroics captured readers, theater goers and movie goers alike for decades. She also created some of the first female detective stories and wrote detectives who used logic to solve crimes.I hear sputtering from the back. "But but Space Opera! Star Wars, Star Trek! Those are manly things, written by men for men!"
Let me introduce you to a few names you should know. Leigh Brackett was synonymous with space opera in the heyday of the pulps. if you've been to a convention, you've seen this t-shirt:
The ebook is available at Project GutenbergAnd lest you think Star Wars is safe, I must remind you, Leigh Brackett was the screenwriter for The Empire Strikes Back. Filming stopped for a day for her funeral.
But what about Star Trek? Square-jawed WASP captain sets out to bring the American Way to space!
Once I finish laughing, and remind you that while Kirk is indeed from Iowa, his actor is Canadian, I will then ask, "what show were you watching?"
It's not America anymore. it's the United Federation of Planets.
On the typical bridge, we have a white captain, an alien science officer, a Russian navigator, an Japanese helmsman, a Kenyan communications officer and Scottish engineer.
Not ONE of these people is WASP. Scotty's Celt and so is McCoy, for all his Georgia roots. Even with a name like Kirk, the captain has Scots in him somewhere. (if he was Anglo-Saxon it would be Church) And very few of them subscribe to any religion.
More names you should know:DC Fontana wrote seven of the original episodes. Margaret Armen wrote 3Jean Lisette Aroste, Shari Lewis (yes, she of Lambchop), Joyce Muskrat, Judy Burns all gave us episodes.
The Enterprise Incident. All Our Yesterdays. The Empath. The Cloud Minders. The Ultimate Computer. By Any other Name. Tomorrow is Yesterday.All written by women.
September 22, 2015
SV Rewatch: 01.05 Cool
Underwater establishing shot, lots of glowing meteor rocks, and bubbles. But the lake itself is frozen, with a nice thick layer of ice, like I've never seen in Kansas in 48 years of living 10 miles from the border of it.
The ice cracks.
On the shore, the kids are partying. Trucks and music, and a nice teepee fire, and kids snogging. Yep, Smallville party.
Chloe and Clark, with Chloe snarking about booze and hooking up, before complaining about the cold. Lana and Whitney are cuddling, by a fire. Sean, typical football player type, asks Clark if Chloe is with him or flying solo.
This is one more of those "Check with potential owner before making a move on the girl" scenes. I'm 5 eps in and this is at least the second.
I love Chloe. Sean offers to rub her hands, saying "Nothing heats up the body like friction." She laughs at him saying she can't believe he delivered that with a straight face. He compliments her writing, she reminds him she's heard all about him from Jenna in Bio. He hits on her while telling her he wouldn't hit on her.
If this is what passes for seduction among teenagers, no wonder she topples into Lionel's bed at the end of season 2.
Sean gets called away to throw passes by the lake. He gets Chloe's number. She is clearly tickled to be asked. Clark asks her about it and reminds her Sean's a dog. She tells him to find Pete, they're leaving.
Whitney, Sean and the boys throw passes. Whitney asks what's with Sean and Chloe. Sean lists her as "another notch." Whitney says "That's cold." He throws a pass that Sean misses and leaves to get the pizza. Sean goes out on the ice to get the ball.
The cracked ice.
Anyone not see where this is going yet?
Next two and a half minutes: Sean is now an undead popsicle of a meteor mutant, who craves heat and sucks it out of anything. (the drowning scene is hard to watch for me) (the frozen fire is pretty)
Credits.
Parents are doing the books. Clark adds it faster than the calculator. He's horrified. He makes a joke about joining a pro team. Martha tells him his face on a cereal box can wait, he needs to get to school. Superspeed out, back to catch the poptart correct the math and head out again.
Some rapid-fire chatter about dating and crushes. And Chloe protests being used as a dating crash-test dummy. She loses her temper with them.
School. Sean is in the nurses office, shivering. He can't get warm and his body temperature is about 35. He drains some heat from the nurse and feels better.
Martha is chainsawing logs, and spins, nearly gutting Lex. Can I stop for a moment and say I love that Martha uses the chainsaw as competently as Jonathan would? It's nothing for a big guy or a big girl like me (6' 200+ lbs) to sling a chainsaw around, but Martha is not large. That is a mid-sized chainsaw, and gas powered. Also: safety gear! The Kents are careful on their farm, unlike the Luthors who take needless risks. (Lex's fast driving, Lionel refusing ear protection)
"I come in peace!" Lex with his hands up and Martha still with the saw. "I'm just glad you weren't welding." Note: he thinks she would be totally capable of doing so! He's wanting about 30 artichokes for a dinner party for the local famring community, to discuss the option of investing.
The Talon is having a 10th Annual monster Festival. Lana is reading about art ehibits. Lex, of course, has seen it, in St. Petersburg. She's going with Whitney. Lex impugns Whitney's motives and says she's with the wrong guy. And Whitney has forgotten about it, and kicked in on a PPV fight. He promises to make it up to her. Lex smirks from across the cafe.
Then he informs Clark she's free tomorrow. "A high school boyfriend isn't a husband. he's an obstacle." Lex offers him Radiohead tickets for tomorrow, if he asks Lana to go. He's giving Clark the benefit of his experience. Lex sweetens the pot with a roundtrip limo ride and a flirt.
Awkward asking out, "just as friends." And Clark gets the date.
Chloe and Pete congratulate him. Chloe says she's happy but looks broken at the statement. Sean approaches, asks i she's free. She says maybe in a little while and he goes chasing his ex, Jenna.
Cut to Jenna in a hot shower, with a shower radio. Lots of steam. And Sean coming in to a room of steam and candles and she propositions him. Shadow on the shower curtain and he's breathing too hard, leaving frost on the shower curtain. This whole scene is very Psycho. He grabs the faucet and the nice hot shower turns to sleet. Jenna falls out of the shower, pulling down the curtain, the rings popping and rattling just like Psycho.
He kisses her and she's an ice statue that shatters when he lets it fall. As he walks past, all the candle flames freeze. (eww, does she thaw out in little broken pieces?)
Jonathan is working on something at the table and Martha chides him for not only riding the motorcycle, but repairing it in the house. She wants him to come to the meeting at Lex's.
"We talked about that."
"I talked. You grunted."
Martha makes a case, but Jonathan can't get past the history. Clark arrives, smiling.
"I'm not familiar with this child. Where's the moody one? Lives upstairs? Runs Real fast?"
I love Martha. Her dialogue is spot on and O'Toole delivers it perfectly.
Both parents look amused, pleased and impressed by the date with Lana. Although Jonathan gets in a dig about Lex working out all their evenings.
Sean is calling girls he knows and lighting matches trying to get warm. He finds Chloe's number still on his hand. She's giving Clark clothes advice when Sean calls. She thinks he's dumb, but hot and dubs a fact-finding mission to see if he deserves a date.
The Kents are the only guests. Lex has a proprosal that's only slightly more subtle than "Sell me your son as my lover and I'll save the farm."
Lana and Clark on the date, in the limo. Clark calls it "defensive reading." when the world gets too disappointing, Lana retreats to a book. Clark uses x-ray vision for a card trick. She didn't tell Whitney. Awkward date solved by turning on TV.
The kid's name is Sean Kelvin. Terrible pun.
Clark has the driver stop.
Chloe, working alone on a grape iMac. So early 2000s. We also hear her modem.
She hears something, goes to investigate. A trail of rose petals leads her away from the Torch office.
Clark has Lana wait at a coffee shop to be safe, and vanishes.
Chloe arrives in the pool. Sean locks them in the pool. He can't stay warm. Body heat lasts longer. he pushes her into the heated pool and then freezes it. Chloe is a strong swimmer, but still gets frozen in by one foot. Clark to the rescue. Chloe runs and Sean vanishes.
Research time.
Pete is out with a girl. And Lana is reading defensively. Some talk of Clark. "Clark Kent International Man of Mystery." Lana hands off the limo to Pete and has Whitney take her home. Clark shows a little too late.
Sean is draining the town generator, and when it flickers, Clark goes on the alert.
Lex and Jonathan arguing. Jonathan makes a case for standing on his own two feet. Lex points out Hiram Kent used government subsidies to get through the lean years.
Lana and Whitney, not talking, and then talking. Whitney being jealous. Whitney sees Sean too late and ditches his truck. Sean is cold again and vanishes. Whitney gets the sprained Lana out and they're heading to the Luthor place.
"Which begs the question, what does Lex Luthor get out of all this?"
Every slasher said "your son!" in unison right here.
Lex: Blah blah profit, blah blah, not a charity.
They're sealing the deal as Whitney helps Lana in. Martha goes into concerned mother.
Clark finds the truck, only to have Sean drain him. Sean is getting less and less careful, less and less caring about the damage.
The five are holed up at the mansion, and Sean eats the generator. Even a Kryptonian warm-up doesn't last. Clark thaws and makes an expression I know I've seen on Christopher Reeves' face.
Jonathan checks the gate, Martha goes to the generator. It's iced over. Sean shows up. He menaces Martha, but Clark arrives. Martha hurries inside.
Fight scene. Sean ends up in the lake, and freezes it over, trapping him beneath the ice. he's already dead, he can't drown. So what happens when he thaws? or is Lex going to chisel out the block with Sean in it and send it to the deep-freeze at Belle Reve?
Jonathan working on motorcycle, Lex turns up. He expresses surprise about the bank loan. He reiterates the offer.
Memorial wall for Jenna, and Chloe lights a candle. She says "It could have been me because some guy expressed a modicum of interest in me." They leave Clark to talk to Lana.
He gives her that smile that only is for Lana and Lex. Whitney is being more attentive because of the non-date.
"Why do you go out with him, Whitney, I mean?"
"Because whenever I need him, he's there. He makes me feel safe."
And Clark looks like he's been stabbed and Lana walks off, deeply unhappy. The other students go to class. Clark stays standing, alone in the hall, despondent.
Death toll: 2. Sean and Jenna
Attempted murder: Clark, Chloe, Martha
Injury: Lana sprained an ankle.
Damages: Whitney's truck (again), the town power plant, the highschool pool (can't be good to freeze it) the pipes in Jenna's house, the Luthor generator, and a thermometer.
References: Love Connection, Radiohead, Psycho.
Commentary:
I see this as a commentary more on high school sex roles than just a Freak of the Week ep. Everyone is having dating problems, and Sean wants warmth. (this is asked of him about 4 times "what do you want?"/"To get warm.") The girls who turn Sean down, do it because he's a cad, a dog, a player. Whitney is treated as a jealous owner, one Clark decides to ignore.
Pete gets lucky, and gets a second date. Chloe almost gets killed and Clark and Lana are driven further apart.
Lana has a reason for being with Whitney, and it's one Clark can't promise her. Whitney is THERE. Clark will always be abandoning dates to save people.
It's about being left out in the cold. This is one that works on a metaphorical level, as well as on a horror level.
The ice cracks.
On the shore, the kids are partying. Trucks and music, and a nice teepee fire, and kids snogging. Yep, Smallville party.
Chloe and Clark, with Chloe snarking about booze and hooking up, before complaining about the cold. Lana and Whitney are cuddling, by a fire. Sean, typical football player type, asks Clark if Chloe is with him or flying solo.
This is one more of those "Check with potential owner before making a move on the girl" scenes. I'm 5 eps in and this is at least the second.
I love Chloe. Sean offers to rub her hands, saying "Nothing heats up the body like friction." She laughs at him saying she can't believe he delivered that with a straight face. He compliments her writing, she reminds him she's heard all about him from Jenna in Bio. He hits on her while telling her he wouldn't hit on her.
If this is what passes for seduction among teenagers, no wonder she topples into Lionel's bed at the end of season 2.
Sean gets called away to throw passes by the lake. He gets Chloe's number. She is clearly tickled to be asked. Clark asks her about it and reminds her Sean's a dog. She tells him to find Pete, they're leaving.
Whitney, Sean and the boys throw passes. Whitney asks what's with Sean and Chloe. Sean lists her as "another notch." Whitney says "That's cold." He throws a pass that Sean misses and leaves to get the pizza. Sean goes out on the ice to get the ball.
The cracked ice.
Anyone not see where this is going yet?
Next two and a half minutes: Sean is now an undead popsicle of a meteor mutant, who craves heat and sucks it out of anything. (the drowning scene is hard to watch for me) (the frozen fire is pretty)
Credits.
Parents are doing the books. Clark adds it faster than the calculator. He's horrified. He makes a joke about joining a pro team. Martha tells him his face on a cereal box can wait, he needs to get to school. Superspeed out, back to catch the poptart correct the math and head out again.
Some rapid-fire chatter about dating and crushes. And Chloe protests being used as a dating crash-test dummy. She loses her temper with them.
School. Sean is in the nurses office, shivering. He can't get warm and his body temperature is about 35. He drains some heat from the nurse and feels better.
Martha is chainsawing logs, and spins, nearly gutting Lex. Can I stop for a moment and say I love that Martha uses the chainsaw as competently as Jonathan would? It's nothing for a big guy or a big girl like me (6' 200+ lbs) to sling a chainsaw around, but Martha is not large. That is a mid-sized chainsaw, and gas powered. Also: safety gear! The Kents are careful on their farm, unlike the Luthors who take needless risks. (Lex's fast driving, Lionel refusing ear protection)
"I come in peace!" Lex with his hands up and Martha still with the saw. "I'm just glad you weren't welding." Note: he thinks she would be totally capable of doing so! He's wanting about 30 artichokes for a dinner party for the local famring community, to discuss the option of investing.
The Talon is having a 10th Annual monster Festival. Lana is reading about art ehibits. Lex, of course, has seen it, in St. Petersburg. She's going with Whitney. Lex impugns Whitney's motives and says she's with the wrong guy. And Whitney has forgotten about it, and kicked in on a PPV fight. He promises to make it up to her. Lex smirks from across the cafe.
Then he informs Clark she's free tomorrow. "A high school boyfriend isn't a husband. he's an obstacle." Lex offers him Radiohead tickets for tomorrow, if he asks Lana to go. He's giving Clark the benefit of his experience. Lex sweetens the pot with a roundtrip limo ride and a flirt.
Awkward asking out, "just as friends." And Clark gets the date.
Chloe and Pete congratulate him. Chloe says she's happy but looks broken at the statement. Sean approaches, asks i she's free. She says maybe in a little while and he goes chasing his ex, Jenna.
Cut to Jenna in a hot shower, with a shower radio. Lots of steam. And Sean coming in to a room of steam and candles and she propositions him. Shadow on the shower curtain and he's breathing too hard, leaving frost on the shower curtain. This whole scene is very Psycho. He grabs the faucet and the nice hot shower turns to sleet. Jenna falls out of the shower, pulling down the curtain, the rings popping and rattling just like Psycho.
He kisses her and she's an ice statue that shatters when he lets it fall. As he walks past, all the candle flames freeze. (eww, does she thaw out in little broken pieces?)
Jonathan is working on something at the table and Martha chides him for not only riding the motorcycle, but repairing it in the house. She wants him to come to the meeting at Lex's.
"We talked about that."
"I talked. You grunted."
Martha makes a case, but Jonathan can't get past the history. Clark arrives, smiling.
"I'm not familiar with this child. Where's the moody one? Lives upstairs? Runs Real fast?"
I love Martha. Her dialogue is spot on and O'Toole delivers it perfectly.
Both parents look amused, pleased and impressed by the date with Lana. Although Jonathan gets in a dig about Lex working out all their evenings.
Sean is calling girls he knows and lighting matches trying to get warm. He finds Chloe's number still on his hand. She's giving Clark clothes advice when Sean calls. She thinks he's dumb, but hot and dubs a fact-finding mission to see if he deserves a date.
The Kents are the only guests. Lex has a proprosal that's only slightly more subtle than "Sell me your son as my lover and I'll save the farm."
Lana and Clark on the date, in the limo. Clark calls it "defensive reading." when the world gets too disappointing, Lana retreats to a book. Clark uses x-ray vision for a card trick. She didn't tell Whitney. Awkward date solved by turning on TV.
The kid's name is Sean Kelvin. Terrible pun.
Clark has the driver stop.
Chloe, working alone on a grape iMac. So early 2000s. We also hear her modem.
She hears something, goes to investigate. A trail of rose petals leads her away from the Torch office.
Clark has Lana wait at a coffee shop to be safe, and vanishes.
Chloe arrives in the pool. Sean locks them in the pool. He can't stay warm. Body heat lasts longer. he pushes her into the heated pool and then freezes it. Chloe is a strong swimmer, but still gets frozen in by one foot. Clark to the rescue. Chloe runs and Sean vanishes.
Research time.
Pete is out with a girl. And Lana is reading defensively. Some talk of Clark. "Clark Kent International Man of Mystery." Lana hands off the limo to Pete and has Whitney take her home. Clark shows a little too late.
Sean is draining the town generator, and when it flickers, Clark goes on the alert.
Lex and Jonathan arguing. Jonathan makes a case for standing on his own two feet. Lex points out Hiram Kent used government subsidies to get through the lean years.
Lana and Whitney, not talking, and then talking. Whitney being jealous. Whitney sees Sean too late and ditches his truck. Sean is cold again and vanishes. Whitney gets the sprained Lana out and they're heading to the Luthor place.
"Which begs the question, what does Lex Luthor get out of all this?"
Every slasher said "your son!" in unison right here.
Lex: Blah blah profit, blah blah, not a charity.
They're sealing the deal as Whitney helps Lana in. Martha goes into concerned mother.
Clark finds the truck, only to have Sean drain him. Sean is getting less and less careful, less and less caring about the damage.
The five are holed up at the mansion, and Sean eats the generator. Even a Kryptonian warm-up doesn't last. Clark thaws and makes an expression I know I've seen on Christopher Reeves' face.
Jonathan checks the gate, Martha goes to the generator. It's iced over. Sean shows up. He menaces Martha, but Clark arrives. Martha hurries inside.
Fight scene. Sean ends up in the lake, and freezes it over, trapping him beneath the ice. he's already dead, he can't drown. So what happens when he thaws? or is Lex going to chisel out the block with Sean in it and send it to the deep-freeze at Belle Reve?
Jonathan working on motorcycle, Lex turns up. He expresses surprise about the bank loan. He reiterates the offer.
Memorial wall for Jenna, and Chloe lights a candle. She says "It could have been me because some guy expressed a modicum of interest in me." They leave Clark to talk to Lana.
He gives her that smile that only is for Lana and Lex. Whitney is being more attentive because of the non-date.
"Why do you go out with him, Whitney, I mean?"
"Because whenever I need him, he's there. He makes me feel safe."
And Clark looks like he's been stabbed and Lana walks off, deeply unhappy. The other students go to class. Clark stays standing, alone in the hall, despondent.
Death toll: 2. Sean and Jenna
Attempted murder: Clark, Chloe, Martha
Injury: Lana sprained an ankle.
Damages: Whitney's truck (again), the town power plant, the highschool pool (can't be good to freeze it) the pipes in Jenna's house, the Luthor generator, and a thermometer.
References: Love Connection, Radiohead, Psycho.
Commentary:
I see this as a commentary more on high school sex roles than just a Freak of the Week ep. Everyone is having dating problems, and Sean wants warmth. (this is asked of him about 4 times "what do you want?"/"To get warm.") The girls who turn Sean down, do it because he's a cad, a dog, a player. Whitney is treated as a jealous owner, one Clark decides to ignore.
Pete gets lucky, and gets a second date. Chloe almost gets killed and Clark and Lana are driven further apart.
Lana has a reason for being with Whitney, and it's one Clark can't promise her. Whitney is THERE. Clark will always be abandoning dates to save people.
It's about being left out in the cold. This is one that works on a metaphorical level, as well as on a horror level.
September 19, 2015
The Obituary is up.
http://billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/announcements/obituaries/darren-duwayne-bloomquist/article_3118ee2c-1b8b-57ba-b8b6-c4f5c04599c6.html
They used his USAF picture instead of that driver's license picture that's been all over the news.
Full text
September 18, 2015 6:30 am
Darren DuWayne Bloomquist, 49, of Aurora, Colo., died Saturday, Sept. 5, 2015, while working. A senseless act of violence leaves Denver police investigating Darren’s tragic homicide. Darren was born March 1, 1966, in St. Paul, Minn., to Darrell DuWayne and Karen (Hengescht) Bloomquist. The family moved to Billings, in 1970, where he spent more than half of his life. He graduated from Billings West High School in 1984. In June 1989, he graduated with honors from Eastern Montana College in Billings with a double major in psychology. Darren joined the United States Air Force after college and served stateside during Desert Storm as an assistant to the commanding officer. He was honorably discharged in February of 1994. On July 29, 1997, Darren married Melva Ann Averett in Aurora, Colo. Darren worked in psychology, co-wrote a published book and drove taxi cab. Darren was a kind and loving husband, son, brother, uncle and friend. He had a love for animals, especially cats. He enjoyed fantasy role-playing games, drawing pictures, mazes and writing. He had a number of novels in progress.
Darren is survived by his wife, Melva Ann Bloomquist; parents, Darrell and Karen Bloomquist, of Billings; sister, Dana (Bloomquist) Dietz, married to Jeff Dietz, of Billings; sisters-in-law, Minta (Victor) Sisk, of Billings, and Mona Sisk, of Casper, Wyo.; nieces, Korrin Dietz, of Billings, and Casandra Baker, of Casper; nephews, Preston Dietz, of Billings, and Michael (Elisa) Sisk, of Billings; and several aunts, uncles and cousins. He was preceded in death by his paternal and maternal grandparents.
A Memorial service will be 11 a.m., Sept. 25 at the Monad Chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 3595 Monad Ave, in Billings, with interment following at 1 p.m. in Yellowstone National Cemetery in Laurel. All faiths are welcome to attend.
Memories and condolences may be shared with the family at www.dahlfuneralchapel.com.
They used his USAF picture instead of that driver's license picture that's been all over the news.
Full text
September 18, 2015 6:30 am
Darren DuWayne Bloomquist, 49, of Aurora, Colo., died Saturday, Sept. 5, 2015, while working. A senseless act of violence leaves Denver police investigating Darren’s tragic homicide. Darren was born March 1, 1966, in St. Paul, Minn., to Darrell DuWayne and Karen (Hengescht) Bloomquist. The family moved to Billings, in 1970, where he spent more than half of his life. He graduated from Billings West High School in 1984. In June 1989, he graduated with honors from Eastern Montana College in Billings with a double major in psychology. Darren joined the United States Air Force after college and served stateside during Desert Storm as an assistant to the commanding officer. He was honorably discharged in February of 1994. On July 29, 1997, Darren married Melva Ann Averett in Aurora, Colo. Darren worked in psychology, co-wrote a published book and drove taxi cab. Darren was a kind and loving husband, son, brother, uncle and friend. He had a love for animals, especially cats. He enjoyed fantasy role-playing games, drawing pictures, mazes and writing. He had a number of novels in progress.
Darren is survived by his wife, Melva Ann Bloomquist; parents, Darrell and Karen Bloomquist, of Billings; sister, Dana (Bloomquist) Dietz, married to Jeff Dietz, of Billings; sisters-in-law, Minta (Victor) Sisk, of Billings, and Mona Sisk, of Casper, Wyo.; nieces, Korrin Dietz, of Billings, and Casandra Baker, of Casper; nephews, Preston Dietz, of Billings, and Michael (Elisa) Sisk, of Billings; and several aunts, uncles and cousins. He was preceded in death by his paternal and maternal grandparents.
A Memorial service will be 11 a.m., Sept. 25 at the Monad Chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 3595 Monad Ave, in Billings, with interment following at 1 p.m. in Yellowstone National Cemetery in Laurel. All faiths are welcome to attend.
Memories and condolences may be shared with the family at www.dahlfuneralchapel.com.
My Sexy Saturday: One Sexy Boy
We all know it just takes one sexy boy to get us going. That boy will turn into the man of our dreams. They can start out on the wrong side of the tracks, the right side of the tracks, the rich side or even the poor side. They can be good or they can be bad, we will love them all the same. They can space ship captains or one who is hired to protect us with their lives. They can be farmers and casino owners and the list goes on and on. But all of them started out as one sexy boy. They give us hidden looks, a longing gaze, with love’s promise shining in their eyes and all the things that come with love. We love sexy and it’s always so fun to share.
One of the most beautiful of the beautiful boys who populate my universes is Niall O'Neill from the Cyber'verse. He plays a minor role in Hard Reboot . but in "Chained to the Wheel" in Storm Moon Press' Tall, Dark and Wriggly anthology, he takes center stage.
Your Seven Sexy Paragraphs:
The Timberwolf tried another attack program, changing into an electric eel and using a modified Lightening program to assault the Wheelman. The trident he carried countered with an Absorption Shield. The electrical shocks from the eel streamed into the trident, which the Wheelman used to pin the slippery creature to the sand, twisting it until Niall's avatar twined around the tines like a strand of
spaghetti.
Niall made a motion that should have jacked him out, and then he saw the tracer flower, gray on the golden sand.
"I have your physical body, my boy. You might as well surrender here. I would prefer not to damage you by dumping you gracelessly back into meat-space. Why don't you jack out and we'll discuss this like civilized men?" He turned to Swift-Current. "Swim away, little fish. You have done your work well and will be rewarded."
The Wheelman slightly altered his appearance. Now, instead of a handsome merman, with a long, green-scaled tail, he was half-octopus, his tentacles writhing in the currents. He twined four of them around the eel, who changed back into a slightly hirsute merman, a look of resignation on his face. Swift-Current swam away as fast as he could flip his tail, his body a shimmery flash in the water.
"That's a good lad. You mustn't hold it against your paramour. He does serve me, after all, and you knew that when you agreed to see him." Two more tentacles slithered along the Timberwolf ''s face, and down along his tail. The Wheelman pulled him closer and stroked his face with a hand as well. "You are so lovely; I would prefer not to harm you. Come, meet me in the real and we shall determine what is to become of one of the most successful runners in the world."
Erik jacked out, coming back to his body, seated in its wheelchair. Before him, on his sofa, a lovely boy of Black Irish extraction lay, seemingly asleep. He was adorable, Erik decided. Dark curls framed a round face with delightfully pale skin. He wasn't tall or strong. This one led a sedentary life, but despite the nutritional deficiencies that were a hazard of his low class, the O'Neill parents had been fortunate enough to keep their sons fed adequately to avoid mental impairment.
Niall began to wake, his eyelids fluttering. Erik was going to enjoy this new toy tremendously. He stroked Niall's face. "Wake up, my boy. Tea is ready, and I am looking forward to meeting you."
The Other Sexy People:
One of the most beautiful of the beautiful boys who populate my universes is Niall O'Neill from the Cyber'verse. He plays a minor role in Hard Reboot . but in "Chained to the Wheel" in Storm Moon Press' Tall, Dark and Wriggly anthology, he takes center stage.
Your Seven Sexy Paragraphs:
The Timberwolf tried another attack program, changing into an electric eel and using a modified Lightening program to assault the Wheelman. The trident he carried countered with an Absorption Shield. The electrical shocks from the eel streamed into the trident, which the Wheelman used to pin the slippery creature to the sand, twisting it until Niall's avatar twined around the tines like a strand of
spaghetti.
Niall made a motion that should have jacked him out, and then he saw the tracer flower, gray on the golden sand.
"I have your physical body, my boy. You might as well surrender here. I would prefer not to damage you by dumping you gracelessly back into meat-space. Why don't you jack out and we'll discuss this like civilized men?" He turned to Swift-Current. "Swim away, little fish. You have done your work well and will be rewarded."
The Wheelman slightly altered his appearance. Now, instead of a handsome merman, with a long, green-scaled tail, he was half-octopus, his tentacles writhing in the currents. He twined four of them around the eel, who changed back into a slightly hirsute merman, a look of resignation on his face. Swift-Current swam away as fast as he could flip his tail, his body a shimmery flash in the water.
"That's a good lad. You mustn't hold it against your paramour. He does serve me, after all, and you knew that when you agreed to see him." Two more tentacles slithered along the Timberwolf ''s face, and down along his tail. The Wheelman pulled him closer and stroked his face with a hand as well. "You are so lovely; I would prefer not to harm you. Come, meet me in the real and we shall determine what is to become of one of the most successful runners in the world."
Erik jacked out, coming back to his body, seated in its wheelchair. Before him, on his sofa, a lovely boy of Black Irish extraction lay, seemingly asleep. He was adorable, Erik decided. Dark curls framed a round face with delightfully pale skin. He wasn't tall or strong. This one led a sedentary life, but despite the nutritional deficiencies that were a hazard of his low class, the O'Neill parents had been fortunate enough to keep their sons fed adequately to avoid mental impairment.
Niall began to wake, his eyelids fluttering. Erik was going to enjoy this new toy tremendously. He stroked Niall's face. "Wake up, my boy. Tea is ready, and I am looking forward to meeting you."
The Other Sexy People:
September 18, 2015
Let's Talk About Death
Death isn't a pleasant thing to think about. It comes for each of us, sometimes creeping up by years, sometimes in an instant.
For the person who has died, I believe death is just a transition into a different stage. Call it Post-Life Energy pool, Heaven, Summerlands, The Cauldron of Rebirth. None of us know.
But for those left behind, there is pain. Many Christians will try not to mourn or cry, thinking it's self-indulgent and they should be happy for the loved one in heaven. I encountered this when Mom died. I reminded her best friend, whose own mother had chastised her for crying, that it's not wrong. The shortest verse in the Bible is "Jesus wept." He wept when he was brought news of Lazarus' death. He wept even though he knew he would be raising his friend within the hour. It hurts. A part of your life has been cut away and the raw edges HURT. Grieve as needed.
And there are logistical problems.
As my husband prepares to bury his best friend, neither of them past 50 or expecting it, this is much on my mind.
First and foremost, know when and how you WANT to die.
My mother was always very firm, no heroic measures. No ventilator, no feeding tube. She might even have considered haunting us about the pressers, which kept her blood pressure up when it was crashing. Know when YOU think death occurs. Make your wishes known to the family. "No machines" is a valid choice. "Give me every chance" is as well. Talk to your family about it.
My position is no heroic measures, no machines.
If CPR can bring me back, administer it. If I can be restarted with a defib, do it.
If you're just keeping my body alive on machines and my brain is gone, no way. No ventilator. No feeding tube.
Now, let's say you're gone. Your family has a dead body on their hands, and possibly no one to help. If you have
outlined your wishes, you will make things much easier on them. The simplest thing you can do is make a will and appoint an executor. This will cover all these things.
1) Know how you want your body disposed of.
Do you have an organ donor card? Let your family know.
(Be aware, some diseases and medical treatments can invalidate the card. My grandfather suffered malaria. My mother was in chemo. Neither of them could donate even skin)
Are you donating to science?
Do you want to be cremated?
Do you want a full burial?
Is there a different option? (I hear half of you yelling "Viking funeral!" Cute, but this is serious time. Although I may send a handful on Mom's ashes out on a toy ship next Lilies' War)
2) Know where you want the remains to rest.
Is your SO going to keep them in a candy box?
Are you to be buried in the family plot 500 miles away?
Have your parents sold your burial plot to a complete stranger? (the last is a true story. My grandparents had a 3 space burial plot. When my uncle died, my mother found out my grandparents had sold the third plot to a family in need. My uncle's urn was buried atop my grandfather's coffin)
3) How are you going to pay for this?
Everything costs. Cremation. obituary placement, everything.
Even the most basic cardboard box cremation is about $600. http://www.cremationsocietyofamerica.com/
Church funerals are even more expensive.
Have a plan. Pay in advance if possible. Otherwise, your descendants end up having a garage sale to pay for your cremation. (We raised about $400, and the church covered the other $200)
Insurance is lovely but the red tape can take days and weeks. Also, if your descendants can't FIND the policy, there's a problem.
4) What do you do with awkward personal items?
Mom wore dentures. So do I. Unlike eyeglasses or hearing aids, which can be donated to Lions Club or Rotary, dentures can't be donated or re-purposed. It feels disrespectful to chuck them in the trash. They can be put in the urn afterward. (Mom's are on my altar, at the feet of Mother Hera)
My grandfather left behind condoms. There are those who have extensive sex toy or photograph collections. The best thing to do is to designate one good friend (not your spouse) to handle these things.
5) What about your personal items?
Ideally, you should have a household inventory. If you have a will, and you really should, you can add the inventory, designating who gets what. Keep it up to date. (mine needs revising)
6) What happens to your intellectual property? And what about other people's intellectual property that you hold rights to?
Make the darn will!
This is more for writers and artists and publishers. Who gets royalties after you die? Do you have a designated trustee or executor for these things? Talk to an estate planner.
7) Inform your family.
Let them know your wishes. Let them know how much life insurance you carry and where to find it upon your demise. Distribute items before you die, if possible. My grandmother was forever sending me home with stuff she didn't need, because she'd rather watch me enjoy it while she was alive.
Sort out the work. Who is in charge of the music and making a memorial video? What songs would you like on it? Who has to write the obituary? Who calls the pastor and the rest of the family?
8) The Send Off
Not all of us follow the same faiths as our parents or our spouses or our children. As such, we may be called upon to deal in religious traditions not our own. My husband's friend, a life-long agnostic, is being laid to rest by a Mormon service. (He'll probably be baptized into the faith as well) He is beyond caring and the funeral is for his widow and family.
But if the idea of being laid out in a Baptist church and having an invitation pronounced over your Wiccan corpse (or vice versa) is appalling, let your family know. If, like Mom, you were lucky enough to have advance warning, work with your clergy member to endure the service is what you want. And let your family know.
My husband is still a Christian, although not a member of any church. I would not bury him with the same rites I give the cats: with the invocation of the Crone. But there are many parents who would bury their pagan children with Christian ritual. Make your wishes known to many people.
For the person who has died, I believe death is just a transition into a different stage. Call it Post-Life Energy pool, Heaven, Summerlands, The Cauldron of Rebirth. None of us know.
But for those left behind, there is pain. Many Christians will try not to mourn or cry, thinking it's self-indulgent and they should be happy for the loved one in heaven. I encountered this when Mom died. I reminded her best friend, whose own mother had chastised her for crying, that it's not wrong. The shortest verse in the Bible is "Jesus wept." He wept when he was brought news of Lazarus' death. He wept even though he knew he would be raising his friend within the hour. It hurts. A part of your life has been cut away and the raw edges HURT. Grieve as needed.
And there are logistical problems.
As my husband prepares to bury his best friend, neither of them past 50 or expecting it, this is much on my mind.
First and foremost, know when and how you WANT to die.
My mother was always very firm, no heroic measures. No ventilator, no feeding tube. She might even have considered haunting us about the pressers, which kept her blood pressure up when it was crashing. Know when YOU think death occurs. Make your wishes known to the family. "No machines" is a valid choice. "Give me every chance" is as well. Talk to your family about it.
My position is no heroic measures, no machines.
If CPR can bring me back, administer it. If I can be restarted with a defib, do it.
If you're just keeping my body alive on machines and my brain is gone, no way. No ventilator. No feeding tube.
Now, let's say you're gone. Your family has a dead body on their hands, and possibly no one to help. If you have
outlined your wishes, you will make things much easier on them. The simplest thing you can do is make a will and appoint an executor. This will cover all these things.
1) Know how you want your body disposed of.
Do you have an organ donor card? Let your family know.
(Be aware, some diseases and medical treatments can invalidate the card. My grandfather suffered malaria. My mother was in chemo. Neither of them could donate even skin)
Are you donating to science?
Do you want to be cremated?
Do you want a full burial?
Is there a different option? (I hear half of you yelling "Viking funeral!" Cute, but this is serious time. Although I may send a handful on Mom's ashes out on a toy ship next Lilies' War)
2) Know where you want the remains to rest.
Is your SO going to keep them in a candy box?
Are you to be buried in the family plot 500 miles away?
Have your parents sold your burial plot to a complete stranger? (the last is a true story. My grandparents had a 3 space burial plot. When my uncle died, my mother found out my grandparents had sold the third plot to a family in need. My uncle's urn was buried atop my grandfather's coffin)
3) How are you going to pay for this?
Everything costs. Cremation. obituary placement, everything.
Even the most basic cardboard box cremation is about $600. http://www.cremationsocietyofamerica.com/
Church funerals are even more expensive.
Have a plan. Pay in advance if possible. Otherwise, your descendants end up having a garage sale to pay for your cremation. (We raised about $400, and the church covered the other $200)
Insurance is lovely but the red tape can take days and weeks. Also, if your descendants can't FIND the policy, there's a problem.
4) What do you do with awkward personal items?
Mom wore dentures. So do I. Unlike eyeglasses or hearing aids, which can be donated to Lions Club or Rotary, dentures can't be donated or re-purposed. It feels disrespectful to chuck them in the trash. They can be put in the urn afterward. (Mom's are on my altar, at the feet of Mother Hera)
My grandfather left behind condoms. There are those who have extensive sex toy or photograph collections. The best thing to do is to designate one good friend (not your spouse) to handle these things.
5) What about your personal items?
Ideally, you should have a household inventory. If you have a will, and you really should, you can add the inventory, designating who gets what. Keep it up to date. (mine needs revising)
6) What happens to your intellectual property? And what about other people's intellectual property that you hold rights to?
Make the darn will!
This is more for writers and artists and publishers. Who gets royalties after you die? Do you have a designated trustee or executor for these things? Talk to an estate planner.
7) Inform your family.
Let them know your wishes. Let them know how much life insurance you carry and where to find it upon your demise. Distribute items before you die, if possible. My grandmother was forever sending me home with stuff she didn't need, because she'd rather watch me enjoy it while she was alive.
Sort out the work. Who is in charge of the music and making a memorial video? What songs would you like on it? Who has to write the obituary? Who calls the pastor and the rest of the family?
8) The Send Off
Not all of us follow the same faiths as our parents or our spouses or our children. As such, we may be called upon to deal in religious traditions not our own. My husband's friend, a life-long agnostic, is being laid to rest by a Mormon service. (He'll probably be baptized into the faith as well) He is beyond caring and the funeral is for his widow and family.
But if the idea of being laid out in a Baptist church and having an invitation pronounced over your Wiccan corpse (or vice versa) is appalling, let your family know. If, like Mom, you were lucky enough to have advance warning, work with your clergy member to endure the service is what you want. And let your family know.
My husband is still a Christian, although not a member of any church. I would not bury him with the same rites I give the cats: with the invocation of the Crone. But there are many parents who would bury their pagan children with Christian ritual. Make your wishes known to many people.
September 17, 2015
What's Up, Miss Social Butterfly?
All of a sudden, I'm everywhere, friending and following everyone.
I'm blogging regularly.
I'm tweeting a lot more at asparrow16.
I had a revelation at Imaginarium and it's something I've known forever. But it hit home and sank in. So, if I am marketing by social media, I need to be...You guessed it...SOCIAL!
It can't just be about people I'm connected to and want to read. Although I have a twitter just for that. (TheRealValarltd) It has to be about reaching my audience.
So here are the policies, for those who are new: A) Carry on with reasonable courtesy. No gendered or ethnic slurs.
B) If you are male and we have no friends in common, you should know the following:
1) I am an old married lesbian. I am not into men, other than my husband. Just because I talk about sex does not mean I intend to do it with you.
Hey baby, do you West Coast?/ Yes, I do, but not with you!
2) If you are just here for fandom and commentary, great. Hang around, comment, I may friend you back.
3) If you get gross, you will be sent a copy of Leslie Fish's "That's not the way to get laid" and blocked.
4) If you mansplain or expect me to do your google work, be advised, I charge library paraprofessional rates, $13/hr, 2 hour minimum. I will bill you.
C) There is a lot of gay stuff around here. D) There is a lot of book promo here. E) This is a woman-owned, pagan-oriented, kinky queer blog. In case you missed this. F) We're coming up on the Holidays. This means music videos, crafts, stories, and other fun stuff. Posting levels go up in October and December.
See the Semi-Annual Social Media Briefing for other places to find me.
I'm blogging regularly.
I'm tweeting a lot more at asparrow16.
I had a revelation at Imaginarium and it's something I've known forever. But it hit home and sank in. So, if I am marketing by social media, I need to be...You guessed it...SOCIAL!
It can't just be about people I'm connected to and want to read. Although I have a twitter just for that. (TheRealValarltd) It has to be about reaching my audience.
So here are the policies, for those who are new: A) Carry on with reasonable courtesy. No gendered or ethnic slurs.
B) If you are male and we have no friends in common, you should know the following:
1) I am an old married lesbian. I am not into men, other than my husband. Just because I talk about sex does not mean I intend to do it with you.
Hey baby, do you West Coast?/ Yes, I do, but not with you!
2) If you are just here for fandom and commentary, great. Hang around, comment, I may friend you back.
3) If you get gross, you will be sent a copy of Leslie Fish's "That's not the way to get laid" and blocked.
4) If you mansplain or expect me to do your google work, be advised, I charge library paraprofessional rates, $13/hr, 2 hour minimum. I will bill you.
C) There is a lot of gay stuff around here. D) There is a lot of book promo here. E) This is a woman-owned, pagan-oriented, kinky queer blog. In case you missed this. F) We're coming up on the Holidays. This means music videos, crafts, stories, and other fun stuff. Posting levels go up in October and December.
See the Semi-Annual Social Media Briefing for other places to find me.
September 16, 2015
How to Talk about People You Hate and Not Lose Your Credibility
We've all heard it, the political discussion that devolves into fat-shaming, looks-shaming or slut-shaming. The name calling, "Mann Coulter." "Caribou Barbie." "John Edwards, Breck Girl." "House Negro."
So how do we talk about people we dislike and disagree with and yet not slip into name-calling?
1) Define what you dislike about the person.
Sarah Palin is a frequent target of mockery for her lack of coherence, her folksiness and her heinous policies. It is not okay to mock her exaggerated "you betcha" accent. It is, however, fine to say "She's a ladder-pulling secessionist theocrat and her ideas terrify me." Especially if you can provide references that back it up. (A ladder puller is one who benefits from a program or policy and then works to destroy it. They have climbed the ladder and pulled it up after them) Mitt Romney is a vulture capitalist who killed Kay-Bee Toys is a fair assessment of his business practices. Bill Clinton destroyed the country with neo-liberal trade policies which shipped out jobs is also fair. "Ann Coulter is a horse-faced transexual" is not acceptable. "Ann Coulter should be forced to live in the world she envisions" is.
2) Attack the policies, not the person.
Don't call Ted Cruz a Canadian-born Cubano or Bobby Jindal an anchor baby (he's not), or Barak Obama a Halfrican Muslim. Say "Ted Cruz benefited from our immigration laws and now he wants to prevent others from doing so." Say "Bobby Jindal got birthright citizenship, yet would deny it to others." As for the President, there is much to criticize starting with the TransPacific Partnership and moving through endless policies that support banks and Wall Street while only minimally aiding working Americans. His color is the least of it.
3) Keep looks out of it.
Ann Coulter is a specific variety of thin blonde. Yes, she has an adam's apple. My daughter is the same sort of thin blonde. She too has an adam's apple. This physical feature does not make either one of these women into men. Chris Christie is fat. Michelle Obama is a black woman. These things entitle their detractors to mock their appearance, comparing the First Lady to a gorilla and the governor to Boss Hogg or other fat characters or animals. "Hilary Clinton is an old woman with cankles" is not reason to hate her.
4) Fact Check.
When Rush Limbaugh said something about women having to take a birth control pill every time they had sex, he looked ignorant, but people believed him. When people conflate Plan B/The Morning After Pill (which prevents ovulation and pregnancy) with RU486, a chemical abortion (ends an established pregnancy), people who don't know better believe them and then we have a deuce of a time teaching them facts. Make sure you have the facts right before you attack, or you start talking about things like legitimate rape.
5) Know your own positions and frame the other people in reference to them
I am about American jobs for American workers. The GOP candidates are calling for more off-shoring, more protection for the top 1%. Clinton isn't saying much. Sanders has made it a key point in his campaign.
I am for a strong social safety net. The president has indicated he's willing to consider Social Security cuts. The GOP candidates want to eliminate the program entirely, along with every other bit of domestic spending. Sanders wants to expand the safety net and is opposed to cutting Social Security.
"
So how do we talk about people we dislike and disagree with and yet not slip into name-calling?
1) Define what you dislike about the person.
Sarah Palin is a frequent target of mockery for her lack of coherence, her folksiness and her heinous policies. It is not okay to mock her exaggerated "you betcha" accent. It is, however, fine to say "She's a ladder-pulling secessionist theocrat and her ideas terrify me." Especially if you can provide references that back it up. (A ladder puller is one who benefits from a program or policy and then works to destroy it. They have climbed the ladder and pulled it up after them) Mitt Romney is a vulture capitalist who killed Kay-Bee Toys is a fair assessment of his business practices. Bill Clinton destroyed the country with neo-liberal trade policies which shipped out jobs is also fair. "Ann Coulter is a horse-faced transexual" is not acceptable. "Ann Coulter should be forced to live in the world she envisions" is.
2) Attack the policies, not the person.
Don't call Ted Cruz a Canadian-born Cubano or Bobby Jindal an anchor baby (he's not), or Barak Obama a Halfrican Muslim. Say "Ted Cruz benefited from our immigration laws and now he wants to prevent others from doing so." Say "Bobby Jindal got birthright citizenship, yet would deny it to others." As for the President, there is much to criticize starting with the TransPacific Partnership and moving through endless policies that support banks and Wall Street while only minimally aiding working Americans. His color is the least of it.
3) Keep looks out of it.
Ann Coulter is a specific variety of thin blonde. Yes, she has an adam's apple. My daughter is the same sort of thin blonde. She too has an adam's apple. This physical feature does not make either one of these women into men. Chris Christie is fat. Michelle Obama is a black woman. These things entitle their detractors to mock their appearance, comparing the First Lady to a gorilla and the governor to Boss Hogg or other fat characters or animals. "Hilary Clinton is an old woman with cankles" is not reason to hate her.
4) Fact Check.
When Rush Limbaugh said something about women having to take a birth control pill every time they had sex, he looked ignorant, but people believed him. When people conflate Plan B/The Morning After Pill (which prevents ovulation and pregnancy) with RU486, a chemical abortion (ends an established pregnancy), people who don't know better believe them and then we have a deuce of a time teaching them facts. Make sure you have the facts right before you attack, or you start talking about things like legitimate rape.
5) Know your own positions and frame the other people in reference to them
I am about American jobs for American workers. The GOP candidates are calling for more off-shoring, more protection for the top 1%. Clinton isn't saying much. Sanders has made it a key point in his campaign.
I am for a strong social safety net. The president has indicated he's willing to consider Social Security cuts. The GOP candidates want to eliminate the program entirely, along with every other bit of domestic spending. Sanders wants to expand the safety net and is opposed to cutting Social Security.
"
September 12, 2015
My Sexy Saturday: My Sexy Girlfriend
This is our nod to all the sexy girlfriends out there. We know all about a sexy girlfriend and how their lover feels about them. There are the hidden looks, the longing gaze, the love shining in their eyes and all the things that come with love. The girlfriends can in all shapes and sizes because sexy has no bounds. We love sexy and it’s always so fun to share.
From Hard Reboot:
Buy Link
Blurb:
Two years ago, Sean O'Neill's wife, Caitlin—the ace net-runner called Irishgirl—was stolen from their bed. Now, he knows where she is, but getting her back is only the first step in a long journey.
Caitlin has been trained as a sex slave, her former skills as a net-runner and cyber-thief totally stripped from her, along with her identity and most independent thought. Powerful and wealthy social elites, playing their own dangerous high-stakes games, have hired Sean to retrieve her and again make her what she once was.
But two years is a long time to be out of the net and out of normal society. A lot of new programming has been laid down. Now, giving Irishgirl a hard reboot may take everything Sean has in him, and more...
A brief personal note: My co-author for this book was murdered on Sept 5. He was deeply proud of the work and always liked it when I featured it on a blog post. This one's for you, love, and our Bad Romance.
Your Seven Sexy Paragraphs:
He stroked her, his wide hands gentle on her naked skin, learning her curves all over again. She smiled, letting him explore. He would stop if she said to. The thought was powerful and heady,
but alien. She could control her own body again. She nearly shook from the intensity of the idea.
“Sean, stop.”
His hands froze in the instant, one on the small of her back, one on her thigh. Carefully, he lifted them away from her skin and laid them on the bed, making sure she could see them. She smiled at
him.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, almost afraid.
She loved him and in that moment she knew it. The big gray eyes that looked at her as if she was the most precious thing in the world stared deep into her own and she broke the gaze with a laugh and a kiss.
“Better than all right, Sean darling. So much better.” She pushed on his shoulders and he rolled onto his back at her urging. “But I think I need to be in charge tonight. Irishgirl is home.”
“Yes, yes!” Sean helped her straddle him and pulled her down for a kiss.
The Other Sexy People:
From Hard Reboot:
Buy Link
Blurb:
Two years ago, Sean O'Neill's wife, Caitlin—the ace net-runner called Irishgirl—was stolen from their bed. Now, he knows where she is, but getting her back is only the first step in a long journey.
Caitlin has been trained as a sex slave, her former skills as a net-runner and cyber-thief totally stripped from her, along with her identity and most independent thought. Powerful and wealthy social elites, playing their own dangerous high-stakes games, have hired Sean to retrieve her and again make her what she once was.
But two years is a long time to be out of the net and out of normal society. A lot of new programming has been laid down. Now, giving Irishgirl a hard reboot may take everything Sean has in him, and more...
A brief personal note: My co-author for this book was murdered on Sept 5. He was deeply proud of the work and always liked it when I featured it on a blog post. This one's for you, love, and our Bad Romance.
Your Seven Sexy Paragraphs:
He stroked her, his wide hands gentle on her naked skin, learning her curves all over again. She smiled, letting him explore. He would stop if she said to. The thought was powerful and heady,
but alien. She could control her own body again. She nearly shook from the intensity of the idea.
“Sean, stop.”
His hands froze in the instant, one on the small of her back, one on her thigh. Carefully, he lifted them away from her skin and laid them on the bed, making sure she could see them. She smiled at
him.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, almost afraid.
She loved him and in that moment she knew it. The big gray eyes that looked at her as if she was the most precious thing in the world stared deep into her own and she broke the gaze with a laugh and a kiss.
“Better than all right, Sean darling. So much better.” She pushed on his shoulders and he rolled onto his back at her urging. “But I think I need to be in charge tonight. Irishgirl is home.”
“Yes, yes!” Sean helped her straddle him and pulled her down for a kiss.
The Other Sexy People:
September 9, 2015
Smallville Rewatch, Episode 4, X-Ray
Recap:
Establishing Shot: Smallville Street. Lex Luthor, carrying a bright red backpack walks into the bank and attempts to close all his accounts. But the signature card doesn't match. Mot even close. One looks very hasty business man's scrawl, the new one is too careful. Props for not making it look "girly" with looping letters and possibly even hearts instead of dotting the i.
When Lex is asked for ID, he pulls a gun from the backpack and demands all the money, Her barrels out, backpack in one hand, gun in the other, past the pharmacy and literally runs into Clark outside of Nell's Flowers. He backhands Clark through the plateglass of Speck's Optical.
Clark has a vision of Lex's skeleton and it's glowing green. Fade out puzzled Clark.
Interior, a living room/shop full of bric-a-brac. Rose Greer, a pretty, middle-aged blonde lady comes in. This is Beverley Breuer, who was also in FireWall and Scary Movie 3 and 4. I was checking because I thought she had played "Pat" in the "Dead Man's Party" Episode of Buffy, but I was wrong.
She hurries up the steps and confronts Tina about the backpack full of money. Lizzy Caplan is barely 20 and still has the adolescent sullenness. Last saw her work in True Blood as Jason Stackhouse's hippie girlfriend Amy.
She had promised to solve all their problems and has used her ability to shapeshift in order to frame Lex for the bank robbery. This first exchange sets up Tina's obsession with the perfect life and with Lana.
They scuffle. the bag breaks, and Rose falls down the stairs and breaks her neck. Tina is distraught, calls 911, and changes her mind about reporting it.
Credits.
We're getting new pictures in the opening credits, including Clark with the shield box in his hands.
Morning, Kent Farm.
Martha is reading the big story aloud, disbelieving, as everyone gets breakfast.
Lex shows up and hovers outside the screen door, with a joke about an evil twin. The framing of this shot, him, literally framed by the door, the white screen door, the slightly rococo curlicues on the edges like a portrait, seems important.
Jonathan looks appalled, Martha is pragmatic. He promises he's not carrying, and Clark asks the question: why aren't you in jail?
Lex was in Metropolis, speaking in front of 200 people.
Jonathan has gone from appalled to concerned, asking about leads.
Lex questions Clark about seeing him.
Clark avoids the "Were your eyes playing tricks on you question" because he thinks his eyes may have been.
And this time, Lex brings the snark. "I'm sure certain people's opinions of me will becemented in stone." with a pointed look at Jonathan.
Jonathan has the wit to catch it, the grace to wince, and excuses himself to go work.
"I promise I'm not a criminal mastermind." Anyone else just add "Yet!" to that statement?
And a patented Clark smile, just for Lex. And Lex drops his eyes, shoves his tongue into one cheek, and looks thoughtful.
Exterior school.
The boys are rope-climbing in gym. The girls are going for showers. Clark is watching Lana and having a headache. Coach demands his attention, and informs him he gets 10 laps if Pete beats him to the top of the rope.
They climb and Clark blinks, suddenly seeing Pete without any skin. Pete's Visible Man moment startles Clark enough he falls off the rope. As he tries to sit up, he realizes he's seeing right through the wall of the girls' locker room, and getting the full underwear parade. Another blink and Lana goes about her business in a towel, dropping it to get dressed. Clark is wearing the face of every teen boy whose dreams have just come true.
Kent Farm.
Clark has told the folks. In what will become the standard "Let's figure out the power" scene, he outlines what's happening and Martha and Jonathan look worried and try to figure out how to help him get it under control.
"I can see through things! How do you control that?"
So practice time.
Tina goes to visit Lana, who is cleaning out the garage.. Lana asks if everything was all right. Tina says she missed school because her mom was unwell. Tina says now that Lana is off the squad, she'll have time for he unpopular friends too.
Tina says Lana is lucky to have Nell, suggests that if something happened to her mom, she'd be alone. She reiterates that Lana has a perfect life. She comes up with the ":wouldn't it be cool if we were sisters?" idea and asks if Nell would adopt her if something happened to her mom. The creep factor has edged up considerable by the end of this.
Lana shushes her with a "Tin, nothing's going to happen to your mom."
.
Clark on the street. The Talon is running "The Lost Boys" as part of a Friday Night Monster Movie fest. The tag line for this was "Sleep all day, Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire."
Let me riff here. The vampires are the ultimate outsiders, as Clark (in his bloodred sweater) is. They have great powers, as he does. And neither can die. But Clark is not the vampire. Tina is. She devours the lives of other people, first taking them on and then ruining them, or attempting to steal them for herself.without thought to the consequences. [SPOILER} And she dies impaled.
Sudden headache.
And the street is full of skeletons.
The oddly green glowing one is going into the antiques store. And Martha needs something there. An awkward exchange with Mrs. Greer, who mentions she's planning to sell the store and go to Metropolis. Clark asks about Tina, and is told she's at Lana's When Rose goes to get the lamp for Martha, Martha inspects the antiques. She tips a mirror just wrong and sees a strap of hundreds sticking out from under a chest.
Rose has an excuse, and comes in just as Martha is picking up the money. She claims its from a client. When Martha forgets her purse, Tina steals the keys and gives it back to her. Rose becomes Tina again, with a wicked one-sided smile.
Martha pauses before the newspaper box showing the headline about Lex robbing the bank. She walks, looking puzzled. A blue GMC truck, Clark behind the wheel, jumps the curb and attempts to run her down. Clark reappears to pick her up as a truck vanishes down an alley.
Table time dissection as they try to figure out the attack on Martha. "So Rose turned into Clark, stole your keys and tried to run you down?" They decide this is ridiculous, except for Clark, who points out Tina's skeleton is weird and green.
Tina was born with soft bone disease, but got better, suddenly, around her 3rd birthday. Right after the meteor shower.
More control exercises. Clark and Jonathan have a moment when they try the "what have I got in my hand" game. Clark has the cutest smile, especially when he's slightly silly.
Lana's still in the garage. She's found her mom's cheerleading stuff, complete with tasselled gogo boots. And a diary. Reading dead parents' diaries never goes well.
Nell is frosting a cake when Lana comes in, clearly having been crying, and insists Nell lied to her about her mother.
Roger Nixon is leaning on Lex's convertible as Lex comes out with a coffee. This reporter from the Inquisitor will dog rest of the season. Lex describes the Inquisitor: "I've read comic books with less fiction than your rag." But Nixon also has Lex's juvenile record, which should be sealed.
"Musta taken a Brinks Truck of your dad's money to keep those people quiet." He threatens to reveal something about Club Zero. When Lex counter threatens to sue, Nixon shrugs that lawsuits take years and everyone will know when the story is printed.
Lex says if he really wanted to print it, he would have, and that it's just blackmail.
Lana comes home after dark to find Nell reading the diary. She insists she didn't lie. Lana insists that by Nell attempting to construct a perfect life for Laura, she had lied. That Lana has never felt she measured up. Laura was the brightest and smartest girl in her class, and gave a graduation speech.
Tina is brooding at school, wearing an outfit like Lana's. Clark is staring at her until Chloe and Pete interrupt him. Other people are noticing Tina's Lana fixation and attempt to clone herself into Lana. Whitney makes a comment about her having Lana LoJacked. Tina proposes moving in with lana and Nell, saying her mother is going to Metropolis but doesn't want to pull her out of school.
Lana hems and haws--being perfectly reasonable about needing to ask Nell first--and Tina starts losing her temper. "You should have said yes, Lana. It would have been perfect." Tina takes off her emerald necklace and leaves school. Clark sees her go and x-rays the locker, finding the stolen money. Tina confronts him about the staring.
Clark comes home early. He's starting to get control. So he goes home and tells his folks. Tina is obsessively writing Lana's name. She sees Sheriff Ethan coming to the store, so she turns into Rose and leaves, blowing off the Sheriff.
Lana comes in to catch Clark staring at football bank, trying to see how much is in it without opening it. Lana fills Clark in about the money and Tina asking to come live with her. Lana says Clark is the only one who sees her for herself and thanks him by kissing him.
In a stunning display of maleness, he brings up Whitney, clearly worried about the prior claim. Lana tells him to forget it. After more snogging, Lana becomes Tina and tells Clark he should have stayed out of her life. She tosses him through the wall of the barn and shatters a vehicle windshield.
The Kents have searched the place. Clark hypothesizes the meteor shower did something to Tina's bones, so she can change shape and have superstrength.
Lana goes to see Chloe at the Torch. She wants a copy of her mother's speech, from 1977. "Due to the controversial nature of this year's graduation speech, the Torch has elected not to run it." Chloe offers to try and find it.
Lex is drinking with a large pile of banded money beside him. Roger Nixon arrives for his money.He trades the money for the originals of Lex's record. Lex threatens to make him disappear, leaving him alive, but with all his data: driver's license, SSN, bank account, erased. He offers a new identity, much less upstanding than a muckraker.
Nixon gives the money back, Lex says they aren't even. He threatens Roger's brother who works for the Juvenile Records Office. Because Lex knows this, he now has Nixon at his command, 24/7, and will feed him stories. This is ruthless. Lex's voice cadence is even Lionel's on "When I bury something, it stays buried."
He shows Nixon the car. In its own room. This is the proto-Chamber of Clark Kent. He tells Nixon he drove it off a bridge at 60. And tells Nixon that the mystery of how he's still alive is the mystery he needs Nixon to help solve.
This is a moment where Lex is purely selfish. He's desperate to know more, and he nows by feeding Nixon THIS story he'll hook the man. but it's still Clark he's having investigated.
Clark is trying to stare through the lead lined box. No success. He stares at Lana, possibly doing a skeleton check. Lana tells him about the diary. She asks him if he's tried to find his parents. He says no.
Lana is being affectionate with Whitney, who says he has to study for a trig test. She shoves him into the wall and kisses him. And then asks to borrow his jacket. Tina now has Whitney's jacket.
Clark has explained things to Pete, who suggests he ask Chloe for help. Chloe is too busy. They check out the Antique store and Clark sees the skeleton in the wardrobe. They get in and Clark finds Rose's body.They also find the Lana signatures. "Worse, she wants to become Lana."
Lana in the graveyard, talking to her mom. Whitney shows up. He tells her that her folks are dead and she needs to deal with it, that she has no right be unhappy. Tina tries to kill Lana, because she doesn't deserve her life. She gets the necklace.
Exterior Cobson mausoleum. Lana coughs awake inside a crypt.
Clark looks for her, only to find Whitney. With the necklace in his pocket, Clark is weakened and Whitney belts Clark with the shovel. But when he takes off the jacket and tosses it aside, the rock is out of range. The third blow doesn't land.A number of tombstones are smashed before Clark throws Whitney into a tree, and he turns back into Tina.
Clark x-rays the graveyward and sees the movement in the crypt. He rescues Lana, but for a bad moment we think he's too late. He scoops her up and carries her out.
Lana is okay and leaning on the fence outside her house, paramedics and cops running lights. Chloe arrives, and brings the graduation speech. Tina will be all right, and they'll put her where she can't hurt anyone else.
Jonathan doesn't understand, but Clark gets Tina's jealousy of the normal people and desire to be someone else. Whitney runs up to take care of Lana. Martha sees Clark's jealousy and understands. Clark x-ray peeps on the kiss and comfort.
"Mom, if you could see anything, what would you do?"
"Learn to close my eyes."
Martha knows EXACTLY where Clark is.
Lana in her car, holding the cassette with the speech on it. Listening to her mother's graduation speech. Lana takes off the necklace and holds it as she listens. Fade out.
Stats:
Death Toll: 1, Rose Greer
Attempted Murder: 2, Clark, Lana
Injury: Tina knocked unconscious during fight
Destruction: Cheval mirror, a number of tombstones, dents to the Kent truck, windshield of the Kent truck, wall of the Kent barn
Power introduced: X-ray vision.
Arc elements: Tina will return in season 2. And Roger Nixon will be around rest of this season.
Commentary:
Another Lana stalker, this one more Single White Female than romantic. An interesting concept, the mutant who can look like anyone. And Lizzy Caplan carried off Tina with delicious self-centered obsession. But she only sees the shallowest aspects of people and so does not impersonate them well for long.
.
Establishing Shot: Smallville Street. Lex Luthor, carrying a bright red backpack walks into the bank and attempts to close all his accounts. But the signature card doesn't match. Mot even close. One looks very hasty business man's scrawl, the new one is too careful. Props for not making it look "girly" with looping letters and possibly even hearts instead of dotting the i.
When Lex is asked for ID, he pulls a gun from the backpack and demands all the money, Her barrels out, backpack in one hand, gun in the other, past the pharmacy and literally runs into Clark outside of Nell's Flowers. He backhands Clark through the plateglass of Speck's Optical.
Clark has a vision of Lex's skeleton and it's glowing green. Fade out puzzled Clark.
Interior, a living room/shop full of bric-a-brac. Rose Greer, a pretty, middle-aged blonde lady comes in. This is Beverley Breuer, who was also in FireWall and Scary Movie 3 and 4. I was checking because I thought she had played "Pat" in the "Dead Man's Party" Episode of Buffy, but I was wrong.
She hurries up the steps and confronts Tina about the backpack full of money. Lizzy Caplan is barely 20 and still has the adolescent sullenness. Last saw her work in True Blood as Jason Stackhouse's hippie girlfriend Amy.
She had promised to solve all their problems and has used her ability to shapeshift in order to frame Lex for the bank robbery. This first exchange sets up Tina's obsession with the perfect life and with Lana.
They scuffle. the bag breaks, and Rose falls down the stairs and breaks her neck. Tina is distraught, calls 911, and changes her mind about reporting it.
Credits.
We're getting new pictures in the opening credits, including Clark with the shield box in his hands.
Morning, Kent Farm.
Martha is reading the big story aloud, disbelieving, as everyone gets breakfast.
Lex shows up and hovers outside the screen door, with a joke about an evil twin. The framing of this shot, him, literally framed by the door, the white screen door, the slightly rococo curlicues on the edges like a portrait, seems important.
Jonathan looks appalled, Martha is pragmatic. He promises he's not carrying, and Clark asks the question: why aren't you in jail?
Lex was in Metropolis, speaking in front of 200 people.
Jonathan has gone from appalled to concerned, asking about leads.
Lex questions Clark about seeing him.
Clark avoids the "Were your eyes playing tricks on you question" because he thinks his eyes may have been.
And this time, Lex brings the snark. "I'm sure certain people's opinions of me will becemented in stone." with a pointed look at Jonathan.
Jonathan has the wit to catch it, the grace to wince, and excuses himself to go work.
"I promise I'm not a criminal mastermind." Anyone else just add "Yet!" to that statement?
And a patented Clark smile, just for Lex. And Lex drops his eyes, shoves his tongue into one cheek, and looks thoughtful.
Exterior school.
The boys are rope-climbing in gym. The girls are going for showers. Clark is watching Lana and having a headache. Coach demands his attention, and informs him he gets 10 laps if Pete beats him to the top of the rope.
They climb and Clark blinks, suddenly seeing Pete without any skin. Pete's Visible Man moment startles Clark enough he falls off the rope. As he tries to sit up, he realizes he's seeing right through the wall of the girls' locker room, and getting the full underwear parade. Another blink and Lana goes about her business in a towel, dropping it to get dressed. Clark is wearing the face of every teen boy whose dreams have just come true.
Kent Farm.
Clark has told the folks. In what will become the standard "Let's figure out the power" scene, he outlines what's happening and Martha and Jonathan look worried and try to figure out how to help him get it under control.
"I can see through things! How do you control that?"
So practice time.
Tina goes to visit Lana, who is cleaning out the garage.. Lana asks if everything was all right. Tina says she missed school because her mom was unwell. Tina says now that Lana is off the squad, she'll have time for he unpopular friends too.
Tina says Lana is lucky to have Nell, suggests that if something happened to her mom, she'd be alone. She reiterates that Lana has a perfect life. She comes up with the ":wouldn't it be cool if we were sisters?" idea and asks if Nell would adopt her if something happened to her mom. The creep factor has edged up considerable by the end of this.
Lana shushes her with a "Tin, nothing's going to happen to your mom."
.
Clark on the street. The Talon is running "The Lost Boys" as part of a Friday Night Monster Movie fest. The tag line for this was "Sleep all day, Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire."
Let me riff here. The vampires are the ultimate outsiders, as Clark (in his bloodred sweater) is. They have great powers, as he does. And neither can die. But Clark is not the vampire. Tina is. She devours the lives of other people, first taking them on and then ruining them, or attempting to steal them for herself.without thought to the consequences. [SPOILER} And she dies impaled.
Sudden headache.
And the street is full of skeletons.
The oddly green glowing one is going into the antiques store. And Martha needs something there. An awkward exchange with Mrs. Greer, who mentions she's planning to sell the store and go to Metropolis. Clark asks about Tina, and is told she's at Lana's When Rose goes to get the lamp for Martha, Martha inspects the antiques. She tips a mirror just wrong and sees a strap of hundreds sticking out from under a chest.
Rose has an excuse, and comes in just as Martha is picking up the money. She claims its from a client. When Martha forgets her purse, Tina steals the keys and gives it back to her. Rose becomes Tina again, with a wicked one-sided smile.
Martha pauses before the newspaper box showing the headline about Lex robbing the bank. She walks, looking puzzled. A blue GMC truck, Clark behind the wheel, jumps the curb and attempts to run her down. Clark reappears to pick her up as a truck vanishes down an alley.
Table time dissection as they try to figure out the attack on Martha. "So Rose turned into Clark, stole your keys and tried to run you down?" They decide this is ridiculous, except for Clark, who points out Tina's skeleton is weird and green.
Tina was born with soft bone disease, but got better, suddenly, around her 3rd birthday. Right after the meteor shower.
More control exercises. Clark and Jonathan have a moment when they try the "what have I got in my hand" game. Clark has the cutest smile, especially when he's slightly silly.
Lana's still in the garage. She's found her mom's cheerleading stuff, complete with tasselled gogo boots. And a diary. Reading dead parents' diaries never goes well.
Nell is frosting a cake when Lana comes in, clearly having been crying, and insists Nell lied to her about her mother.
Roger Nixon is leaning on Lex's convertible as Lex comes out with a coffee. This reporter from the Inquisitor will dog rest of the season. Lex describes the Inquisitor: "I've read comic books with less fiction than your rag." But Nixon also has Lex's juvenile record, which should be sealed.
"Musta taken a Brinks Truck of your dad's money to keep those people quiet." He threatens to reveal something about Club Zero. When Lex counter threatens to sue, Nixon shrugs that lawsuits take years and everyone will know when the story is printed.
Lex says if he really wanted to print it, he would have, and that it's just blackmail.
Lana comes home after dark to find Nell reading the diary. She insists she didn't lie. Lana insists that by Nell attempting to construct a perfect life for Laura, she had lied. That Lana has never felt she measured up. Laura was the brightest and smartest girl in her class, and gave a graduation speech.
Tina is brooding at school, wearing an outfit like Lana's. Clark is staring at her until Chloe and Pete interrupt him. Other people are noticing Tina's Lana fixation and attempt to clone herself into Lana. Whitney makes a comment about her having Lana LoJacked. Tina proposes moving in with lana and Nell, saying her mother is going to Metropolis but doesn't want to pull her out of school.
Lana hems and haws--being perfectly reasonable about needing to ask Nell first--and Tina starts losing her temper. "You should have said yes, Lana. It would have been perfect." Tina takes off her emerald necklace and leaves school. Clark sees her go and x-rays the locker, finding the stolen money. Tina confronts him about the staring.
Clark comes home early. He's starting to get control. So he goes home and tells his folks. Tina is obsessively writing Lana's name. She sees Sheriff Ethan coming to the store, so she turns into Rose and leaves, blowing off the Sheriff.
Lana comes in to catch Clark staring at football bank, trying to see how much is in it without opening it. Lana fills Clark in about the money and Tina asking to come live with her. Lana says Clark is the only one who sees her for herself and thanks him by kissing him.
In a stunning display of maleness, he brings up Whitney, clearly worried about the prior claim. Lana tells him to forget it. After more snogging, Lana becomes Tina and tells Clark he should have stayed out of her life. She tosses him through the wall of the barn and shatters a vehicle windshield.
The Kents have searched the place. Clark hypothesizes the meteor shower did something to Tina's bones, so she can change shape and have superstrength.
Lana goes to see Chloe at the Torch. She wants a copy of her mother's speech, from 1977. "Due to the controversial nature of this year's graduation speech, the Torch has elected not to run it." Chloe offers to try and find it.
Lex is drinking with a large pile of banded money beside him. Roger Nixon arrives for his money.He trades the money for the originals of Lex's record. Lex threatens to make him disappear, leaving him alive, but with all his data: driver's license, SSN, bank account, erased. He offers a new identity, much less upstanding than a muckraker.
Nixon gives the money back, Lex says they aren't even. He threatens Roger's brother who works for the Juvenile Records Office. Because Lex knows this, he now has Nixon at his command, 24/7, and will feed him stories. This is ruthless. Lex's voice cadence is even Lionel's on "When I bury something, it stays buried."
He shows Nixon the car. In its own room. This is the proto-Chamber of Clark Kent. He tells Nixon he drove it off a bridge at 60. And tells Nixon that the mystery of how he's still alive is the mystery he needs Nixon to help solve.
This is a moment where Lex is purely selfish. He's desperate to know more, and he nows by feeding Nixon THIS story he'll hook the man. but it's still Clark he's having investigated.
Clark is trying to stare through the lead lined box. No success. He stares at Lana, possibly doing a skeleton check. Lana tells him about the diary. She asks him if he's tried to find his parents. He says no.
Lana is being affectionate with Whitney, who says he has to study for a trig test. She shoves him into the wall and kisses him. And then asks to borrow his jacket. Tina now has Whitney's jacket.
Clark has explained things to Pete, who suggests he ask Chloe for help. Chloe is too busy. They check out the Antique store and Clark sees the skeleton in the wardrobe. They get in and Clark finds Rose's body.They also find the Lana signatures. "Worse, she wants to become Lana."
Lana in the graveyard, talking to her mom. Whitney shows up. He tells her that her folks are dead and she needs to deal with it, that she has no right be unhappy. Tina tries to kill Lana, because she doesn't deserve her life. She gets the necklace.
Exterior Cobson mausoleum. Lana coughs awake inside a crypt.
Clark looks for her, only to find Whitney. With the necklace in his pocket, Clark is weakened and Whitney belts Clark with the shovel. But when he takes off the jacket and tosses it aside, the rock is out of range. The third blow doesn't land.A number of tombstones are smashed before Clark throws Whitney into a tree, and he turns back into Tina.
Clark x-rays the graveyward and sees the movement in the crypt. He rescues Lana, but for a bad moment we think he's too late. He scoops her up and carries her out.
Lana is okay and leaning on the fence outside her house, paramedics and cops running lights. Chloe arrives, and brings the graduation speech. Tina will be all right, and they'll put her where she can't hurt anyone else.
Jonathan doesn't understand, but Clark gets Tina's jealousy of the normal people and desire to be someone else. Whitney runs up to take care of Lana. Martha sees Clark's jealousy and understands. Clark x-ray peeps on the kiss and comfort.
"Mom, if you could see anything, what would you do?"
"Learn to close my eyes."
Martha knows EXACTLY where Clark is.
Lana in her car, holding the cassette with the speech on it. Listening to her mother's graduation speech. Lana takes off the necklace and holds it as she listens. Fade out.
Stats:
Death Toll: 1, Rose Greer
Attempted Murder: 2, Clark, Lana
Injury: Tina knocked unconscious during fight
Destruction: Cheval mirror, a number of tombstones, dents to the Kent truck, windshield of the Kent truck, wall of the Kent barn
Power introduced: X-ray vision.
Arc elements: Tina will return in season 2. And Roger Nixon will be around rest of this season.
Commentary:
Another Lana stalker, this one more Single White Female than romantic. An interesting concept, the mutant who can look like anyone. And Lizzy Caplan carried off Tina with delicious self-centered obsession. But she only sees the shallowest aspects of people and so does not impersonate them well for long.
.
